Quill pig is another name for a porcupine. Porcupines are unattractive and unpopular, but, as animals go, and unlike eagles, elephants, and donkeys, they are reasonably harmless good neighbors that mind their own business. Here's where we can talk about being good neighbors and why it's eternally important.

Friday, June 26, 2015

How's It Working for You Now?

The Supreme Court has just
found that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage. Whether you
think queers can or should marry is now irrelevant: you will be paying Social
Security benefits to the beneficiaries of queer marriages. Congratulations!

Frankly, I don’t care who you
live with or under what circumstances. If you want to have a hands-off
relationship with a roommate of the opposite sex, or you want to have a
hands-on relationship with one or more members of the opposite or the same sex,
or with a non-human, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me. It’s none of my
business.

The Bible tells us what kinds
of relationships God approves of and what he doesn’t, and if you want me to
tell you what the Bible says, I’m happy to tell you. If you invite me to visit
you in your home or place of business, I’ll consider it on a case-by-case
basis. Same for if I want to invite you.

But I have no right to dictate
the terms for your household, and I would appreciate you extending me the same
courtesy. Except now, of course, courtesy of the Social Security system, if you were
queer, you couldn’t extend me the courtesy of not caring what you do if you wanted to. Uncle Sam taxes,
and Uncle Sam distributes, and whether I like someone’s arrangement or not, I
pay for it.

Thanks heaps, conservative
Christians. I would like to get the state out of the marriage business
altogether. No state married Abram and Sarai, or Isaac and Rebekah, or Jacob
and Leah and Rachel, or David and his dozen or so wives, so I would assume that
marriage precedes the state and therefore the state has nothing to say about
marriage.

But you put Romans 13 over even
marriage, and here you are now, subsidizing queer marriage. How my view of
things could have worse results than this I can’t imagine.

“Yes,” you say, “but if we can
just get the right people in positions of power, we’ll fix this mess.” To which
I say, you’ve been trying hard for thirty-five years to get the right people in
power. How’s it working for you?

Now that queer marriage is the
official policy of the United States government, are you still going to fly Uncle
Sam’s flag in your sanctuary? I suppose that by some sort of postmodern feat of
transubstantiation (and 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 Trinitarian
theology) you can say that that flag really
represents Christian family values, but anyone who thinks 2 + 2 = 4
is going to reply that what it officially
stands for now is queer marriage.

If Uncle Sam is God, serve him
and pledge allegiance to his flag. As for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord.